From Thom Little of the Open:

Despite many of our best runners training for the upcoming XC Nats, CPTC men compiled a solid team to race the Join The Voices 5M.

With the NYRR men’s open third place roads on the line, CPTC put forth a great effort but fell short to UA to come in fourth overall in the annual competition.

On Sunday’s race, the men came in fourth (only 4 seconds behind NYAC) in very humid, yet not hot conditions.

The men were led by Harry Norton who ran a 26:18 followed closely by Phil Falk (26:21) and Atilla Sabahoglu (26:26).

The scoring top 5 were rounded out by Rob Gill (26:41) and Jay Barry (26:51).

Some great performances to mention are

  • Greg Cass who ran a 27:05 after 3 mostly run-free weeks while on his honeymoon in Asia
  • Cary Segall (28:04) who keeps dropping some LBs of muscle and dropping PRs
  • Patrick Frasier (28:14) who shaved off over 4 mins on this distance
  • Chris Spooner (CPTC MVP) who came to town and toed the line despite being sick

The men’s open put in a solid year of racing and next year is a new beginning with new competition.

We hope to improve on this year’s fourth place finish and it will likely all begin at Coogan’s 5k in March WHICH YOU CAN SIGN UP FOR NOW.

I think we have something to be proud about and to celebrate at the holiday party on January 7th. Who knows, we might even do a waterfall or two.

TL

From Andrew Moore of the M 50+:

Congrats to the 50+ team for finishing the season the way you started it, with a solid performance and a team win.  The win this week should lock up the top placing for the year. We have had 12 different runners score for us this year showing great talent and depth. There were our stalwarts, Alan Ruben and Chris Donnelly who were consistently fast, and as needed others stepped up to carry the day – a great job by all.  (thanks to our statistician Tom Raymond for the tabulation)

At the Join the Voices 5-miler, CPTC 50+ was led by Arthur Palmer who ran a terrific 29:19 to win the 55-59 age group followed by Chris Donnelly at 31:01 for 7th in the 50-54 age group and joining CPTC for the first time, Timothy Smith ran a 32:22 to pick up the third scoring spot. Budd Heyman once again ran a solid 35:49 – thanks!

In case you have not been notified, the NYRR has now posted some of the early 2013 races on line for registration.  The team point races have not yet been announced, but the last few years, Coogan’s 5K has traditionally been the first race.  Please sign up if you want to run – we have learned how popular the races have become and how fast they can close out.

Happy Holidays to all

2013 races so far:

Thursday Night at the Races (4 dates and race day on site signups only at the 168th St Armory)

Joe Kleinerman 10k

Manhattan Half Marathon

Gridiron Classic 4M

ESBRU

Al Gordon Classic

Coogan’s 5K

NYC Half

From Hank Schiffman of the 60+:

The doors of time close on another racing season. With so many variables to consider in how NYRR will break down the tally to arrive at the final positions, I’m not going to offer my arithmetic. Details aside, I cannot see how CPTC Men 60+ will end up anywhere other than 2nd place for the year, after Taconic Road Runners.

Last season we cut our teeth; this year we are a player. Yasuhiro coming of age has given us a virtuoso runner and we go deep with a committed, solid backbone of potential scorers. The combination of talent, commitment and depth has brought us to this day. If you look at the accomplishments thru the years of our men 60+, we are a repository of running excellence. But Father Time has other designs. Great running warriors of the past have been rendered out of contention for competition at this point in their lives through wear and tear. As far as the team is concerned, this is a moot issue; we are honored just to share the field with them in any venue.

As to today’s five mile Join the Voices race in the cool fog over Central Park, true to the order of the entire racing year, we came in second to Taconic Road Runners. Very little wind in the damp air of the low 40’s proved perfect for running. Chris Neuhoff’s 35:07 was good for 7th in men 60-64. Dan Molloy scored third for us with 36:37, a five mile PR and 11th in the same age group. Snapping at his heels were Phil Vasquez, 37:02, and Kevin McGuire, 37:55, backed by Fred Trilli, 44:27. Sam Mann pulled a calf in the second mile and proved to be smarter than most, dropping out to race another day. We were not going to do any better than we did had he fallen on his sword and continued on injured. He will be right as rain for Coogan’s rather than a chronic basket case for next season. Last I saw, Budd Heyman was massaging Sam’s calf post race. It does my heart good to see two doctors with one patient between them. It is a wonderful thing to see that they both agreed which one was the patient.

After the race, Dan said I should probably stay off the bike. My take is the other way around. The problem isn’t being on the bike, it’s coming off the bike. Or, as the old saw goes, it’s not the flying; it’s the landing. Injuries are tricky things. We never quite know when we are ready to run again. Between the aging process and the injury, the mature athlete will not know till the following race if the problem is reversible. I’ll leave it to the public to decide if Motrin is a performance enhancing drug: it worked for me today.

And so we shall see what the NYRR statisticians arrive at in their final points tally.

We now turn to track and cross country, those wellsprings of the essential running experience. Join the team and our coaches for Tuesday evening VO2 max workouts on the banked 200 meter track at The Armory.

Looking forward to libations and chatter at our Annual Holiday Awards Party and Banquet on January 12th, and an even faster season next year,

Captain Hank